Step 7: Final touches and wrap-up

Step 8: Finished!

And this is the finished product... In the end I modified the Lego Powerfunctions battery box so that it takes 2x 3 14500 LiPol batteries (nomin...

I have made for my daughter steampunk wings which can fold open and closed with the help of Lego Technic parts.

I was running out of time for the "make it real" contest, so I posted this instructable before I am all done, with the intent to improve/expand as I go... I have not yet been able to do the fabric on the wings, but the rest is done and working.

This is my first instructable, so bear with me as I tweak my style...

So where do you start? You find wings you like that fit the style... Leonardo DaVinci was a prolific drawer and researcher of wings, so I started with looking for images by him, and found one that my daughter liked and looked doable...

Finally, what would I do with the printer? It'd print the parts I used and make them look more Steam Punk and less Lego... And then more, obviously.
I'd also like to start a little 3D printing workshop to allow others access to affordable 3D printing...

Step 1: Design the mechanism

I then designed the mechanism for the wings in Lego Digital Designer, and subsequently built it for real to test whether it actually worked...

Step 2: Transfer the design to the wings image

Satisfied the mechanism worked I took the measurements of the Lego mechanism and transferred it to the image from DaVinci and then I printed it on 1:1 scale. After that I drew the actual shapes on the drawing and then transferred those to foamboard to create a real size prototype.

Most wood (multiplex) can be bought almost anywhere, as can the nuts and bolts. (If you want to use balsa (like I did) you may have to go to specialist shops for model-plane building) Lego Technic (if you want to go that way, see my reliability remark in the other comment) can be bought in many toy stores, or you can go to a Lego shop to just get the required parts ordered. The wine box can be gotten at many deco shops (Just saw them on my vacation trip to Florida in the Hobby Lobby for instance)For fabric, try JoAnn's or Michael's if you're in the USA...

I really don't have the time to build another one of these. We've discontinued use of the wings because it was - after repeated use - unreliable. The small gears (the really small ones) kept breaking...​​My daughter thinks they're too heavy too, so I won't try to remedy the problem either... If I were to try remedying it, I'd probably use a high speed linear actuator (which I tried to replicate with the Lego Technic, which in itself was successful, just had issues with the reliability/quality of the small gears ), and those aren't cheap.Finally the shipping would be prohibitively expensive, due to the total weight!

I think it also depends what you want to use for the wings... Wood is relatively heavy... So is cotton fabric...

If you were to use lighter materials (aluminium, fiber/resin spines, nylon fabric, etc.) you might still be able to get away with using the Lego... Perhaps adding springs to take some of the load (esp. when extending the wings, which is clearly the heaviest task for the motor) may help as well...

PS: The main problem is not the motor (and if it were, Lego also has a bigger one, although that is a bit slower too), but the strength of the plastic cogs, esp. the really small ones, as well as the cohesion of the frame they're mounted in (the 'bricks' come apart which cause the cogs to slip). I chose to not glue anything together, so it can be repurposed... I think that using glue and resin to reinforce the cogs and stick the 'bricks' of the framework together would also increase the load they can take!

I love this build! (consider it stolen for my own set of wings). One question though (well 2 actually). What was your wingspan, and do you recon the little motor could handle more (and thus a heavier weight)?

Wingspan is approx 5' / 150 cm when expanded... And the Lego already struggles (already replaced some broken cogs!) with these, so bigger wingspan would very likely not work with Lego.

I have looked at using either pistons (but that requires a source of pressurized gas/vapor), which would be more true to the theme, or electric linear actuators, but the (10V-12V) ones that have sufficient range (IIRC approx 14cm or 7") of movement are very expensive...